


nightmares

by Shaedan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 23:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16073285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaedan/pseuds/Shaedan
Summary: Molly has met a lot of people who say they don’t remember their dreams. He doesn’t think they mean this.or, molly has a bad dream. caleb helps.





	nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by anon: "there's a ton of fics with caleb being comforted by molly after having a nightmare, but what if the roles were reversed?"
> 
> this is an old fic from this spring, so it's not... entirely up to date, but i decided to finally port it to ao3. thanks to anon for the original prompt!

Dreams are a peculiar thing. Even just in the abstract – you lie down on a piece of cloth, fall unconscious, and proceed to wildly hallucinate for seven to eight hours. And everyone does this, all over the world, every night. Sometimes Molly thinks that if people just sat down and pondered the absolute absurdity of existence, there would be a lot fewer wars.

In reality, dreams are less of a humorous peculiarity and more…

He taught himself not to scream, those first few months. It was slow going, required stuffing his mouth with handkerchiefs every time he went to bed for a few strange months, but he eventually got the hang of it. Now, he just gasps for breath so hard it scrapes in his throat and shoots up into a half-sitting position, arms out in front like he’s bracing against impact.

Molly has met a lot of people who say they don’t remember their dreams. He doesn’t think they mean this.

It takes him a moment to gain his bearings, another until his arms limply fall back into his lap. He looks around the little camp, but all the soft lumps of people are still peacefully sleeping. As he carefully extracts himself, tail and hooves and all, from his bedroll, he tries to recall whatever it was that still has his heart pounding in his chest.

But there’s just nothing. It’s blank, black, void. It’s like his brain has the dreams and then it eats them – stuffs all of it into its mouth, the moment he wakes up, with just a few crumbs falling out, like Jester and the last pastry on the plate.

Something was chasing him, he thinks. Or maybe he was falling.

They’ve camped some distance off the road, underneath a mighty oak growing on the edge of a hill. A creek winds its way past the foot of the hill, babbling quietly at the edge of Molly’s hearing. He climbs down to it almost without thinking. He’s aware that his tail is still anxiously lashing, that he has his hands clutched to his chest like he’s afraid his heart is going to leap out his rib-cage and disappear, but only dimly. Only dimly does he know that he flops down by a bend in the creek and stares at the water running by, one knee raised up to rest his chin on.

The tiny waves zigzagging from shore to shore reflect the moon, floating in the sky high up above. It’s perfectly halved tonight, the dark, star-less side precisely proportional to the white, shining side. Molly stares. He doesn’t think much of anything, except that he’s going to sit here for a bit and then try for at least an hour more of sleep.

He’s almost distracted enough by the empty horror still gibbering in his head that he doesn’t notice the soft crunch of footsteps on gravel. Almost. There’s a short moment where he panics, because he didn’t bring his swords, a short moment where he’s back in that forgotten place his sleeping mind keeps putting him in, but then there’s a soft, “It’s just me.”

It’s Caleb that’s come stumbling through the darkness, theadbare coat and all. Molly sits back and turns around to look at him. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks. He doesn’t say “either”, because frankly that’s more information than Caleb is entitled to.

“I swapped watches with Jester, after you fell asleep.” Caleb trips on a rock and spits a Zemnian curse with surprising heat.

“Here.” Molly hops up on his feet and stretches out a hand.

Caleb fumbles for a moment before finding it. His hands are cold – he’s been sitting out in the cool night air for quite some time, then. Molly didn’t realise it was so late. Or early. “Danke.”

They sit down together.

“I always make a habit of assisting the less gifted,” Molly says and flashes a quick grin. Which Caleb, blinking in the moonlight, can’t see, but it’s important for the overall impression. Molly learned early that a smile in your voice is the trick to getting anything to sound convincing. The carnival had been an excellent learning environment for that sort of thing.

Caleb clears his throat. “Hilarious,” he deadpans.

They sit there silently for a bit. The creek babbles softly to itself as it runs downhill, digging its little canyon deeper and deeper, dust mite after dust mite.

“Maybe one day this will be a real river,” Molly says and makes a gesture. He doesn’t know why. “And this will be a real canyon. Maybe people will come to see it, even though it just started as a little creek that nobody knew anything about.” Including itself. “It could be beautiful, then.”

Caleb says, “Bad dreams?” and Molly very intensely does not want to talk about it.

“No.” Another quick grin. “Just needed some time for myself. Middle of the night seems like the only possibility for that, with all of you lot around.”

Caleb hums. He doesn’t believe Molly for a second, and Molly knows that, but that’s not the point. The point is to get him to stop asking.

“You now, I’ve had my fair share of them,” Caleb offers. “Bad dreams, I mean. Some things–” He blows a hard breath out of his nose. “Some things, your mind never lets you forget.”

Molly is gripped by a sudden impulse to laugh. “Some things your mind just never lets you remember,” he quips back, and he shouldn’t, but now it’s too late. They always said he had a tongue too quick for his own good.

Caleb shakes his head. It doesn’t seem to be at Molly, though. “I know you don’t like to talk about yourself, and you don’t have to, but… I can’t keep hearing you thrash around all night and then sneak off like a criminal for this entire– thing.”

“Venture works,” Molly supplies.  _Why not_?he quietly wonders.

“You’re exhausting,” Caleb mutters. But he scoots closer and bumps their shoulders together. “You don’t want to talk? That’s fine. We’ll just sit here for a bit.”

Molly wants to say,  _Are you going to talk me through breathing exercises_ , but the words die on his tongue. Instead, he feels.

The crispness of the night air against his skin. The way his scars shift and pull as he breathes. The steady stream of air passing in through his mouth, out through his nose. The way his heart starts slowing down, beating less like it’s trying to punch its way out through his chest, stops roaring in his ears.

The warm point of contact between him and Caleb where their shoulders touch, even through Caleb’s coat. His presence at Molly’s side, steady and calm, quiet. Non-assuming, just… there.

Just there. Just him.

Eventually, Molly blinks and unfolds his limbs to stand, brushing away the little pieces of gravel that cling to his trousers. “I’m going back to bed, I think.”

Caleb picks himself up, too. He doesn’t say anything, just nods.

Molly goes ahead, because that’s the least he can do, picking out a path around the rocks and keeping Caleb’s clumsy human feet away from the more unstable piles of pebbles. They don’t talk; it’s just the chirping of insects, the creek, the slide of stone against stone.

Once they’re back up on the hill, Molly beelines for his bedroll. He eases himself into it again, careful not to kick through it or get his tail pinched. Next time they stop, he’s going to see if there’s someone who sells travelling gear specifically for tieflings – if he has to suffer through one more cloak clearly not made with a tail in mind, he’s going to go lie down in the nearest watercourse until someone fixes it.

As he gets comfortable, he hears Caleb shuffle through camp. There’s some careful rustling, followed by a sleep-mussed, indistinct voice. Caleb’s getting some sleep, too, then. Good.

Molly puts his head down and closes his eyes. Then he feels something soft against his side, and tiny footsteps across his body. He opens his eyes just in time to see Frumpkin settle in against his chest with a sharp-toothed yawn. Unable to help himself, he runs the pads of his fingers against Frumpkin’s fur.

With something like gratitude warming his chest, Molly falls asleep. And doesn’t wake until Jester starts shouting about sleepy-heads.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr as [rackartyg](https://rackartyg.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat!
> 
> comments and kudoses are always treasured! if you don't know what to comment, write BANANA in all caps and i'll know what you mean.


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